Album Notes

The album consists of twelve original songs featuring female vocals (Strings), acoustic guitar (Martin Giles) and fretless bass (Chris Marshall). Guest musicians supply violin and drums. There are no synthesizers, samplers or programmed drums on the album.

The arrangements are characterised by minimalist instrumentation and production that allows the songs to speak directly to the listener.

History
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Chris and Strings met in 1998 while doing charity work and rapidly became good friends. On one occasion, Strings was brave enough to play Chris a song she had written. Chris was impressed with her voice, and charmed by her lyrics.

A couple of years later, Chris invited Strings to an evening of Joni Mitchell covers at a small London club. Here, he introduced Strings to Martin and all the elements of the band fell into place.

Initially they met to play Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman songs at parties. However, it wasn't until almost a year had passed that Strings and Martin decided to write some original songs. Strings, it transpired, had been writing poetry for many years, collecting (among other things) a major national poetry prize along the way.

Two consecutive Saturday afternoons yielded two virtually-complete songs. The next step was to take these songs to Chris who added his basslines to the guitar and voice. The writing process carried on in this way, and within the year, the band had enough material for an album.

Encouraged by positive feedback from friends, the band decided to book recording sessions at Phoenix Sound in late 2002. The entire album was produced and manufactured by the band who also designed the CD artwork themselves.

The finished product was released in April 2003 and the band have already sold around 500 copies by word-of-mouth alone.